Rokinon’s Next “Cine Lens”

Rokinon announced their 35mm T1.5 “cine lens” a few months back, their maiden offering in the world of budget cinema lenses. Now they’re announcing their next alteration set to release this September in the form of a wide angle prime lens. A 14mm T3.1 which actually sounds quite nice. Rokinon didn’t release any pricing but with a cheap plastic body and low-cost materials, the lens will certainly be a good, cheap alternative to higher priced wide angle options. It’s primary competitor will be lenses like the Canon 14mm f/2.8 which receives well deserved great reviews from Canon fanboys

Canon 14mm f/2.8 L II USM

While the Canon 14mm is a very nice lens optically, it will not perform as well as the Rokinon thanks to the Canon’s light duty, loose tolerance, sloppy auto focus assembly, in the world of motion picture application. Additionally, the Canon lens being gelded, will work only on “smart” Eos mount cameras and still lacks manual aperture control.
The next best alternative to both the Rokinon and the Canon would be the Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 ZF.2 with a full Duclos Cine-Mod. The Zeiss 15mm is an amazing performer and will almost certainly deliver better results than both of the aforementioned wide angle lenses. The build quality is superb and the materials are nothing short of typical German build quality (even though the lens is built in Japan). With the addition of the Duclos Cine-Mod you have the same functionality of the Rokinon lens with the 32-pitch focus gear and the smooth clickless aperture movement. Expect the performance of the Zeiss to be superior to that of the Rokinon, but at a cost of nearly $3k. Remember, lens quality : price difference increases exponentially.

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